DISCLAIMER: This post is about pregnancy loss, so I wanted to make a note for those of you who are not ready to read about this topic – because for a long time I wasn’t.
I’ve been putting off writing this blog for some time now. I know it’s important to share stories of loss, but opening this door again wide enough to write a full depth blog post wasn’t something I was looking forward to. Mama Bear, who is my Soul Sister / bestie / oldest running friend (we literally met in preschool) told me she miscarried today and I didn’t know what to say. I have been through this and I still didn’t know exactly what I should say or could possibly say to help or make her feel better. But then I realized there isn’t anything that you can say that will take all the pain away or change the fact that at one moment she was going to be a mother of a precious child and in another moment she wasn’t. So, I ended up telling her how sorry I was, how much I loved her, how strong she is and that I lost a pregnancy too. I decided that it was time to write this blog and in doing so I’d be back in my place of loss and hopefully could be in a frame of mind that would better help my friend through this.
So, here goes;
My precious Poppy,
I need to preface this by saying that my husband and I got married later in life. We met and started dating when I was 25 and he was 32. We dated for 7 years before we got engaged, waited another year to get married and we wanted to just be married for a bit before we had kids. So, I was 34 when we started “trying”. We didn’t try in the beginning, we just “pulled the goalie” meaning we stopped using all contraceptives. I knew we were older, so I didn’t want to put the extra stress of following my ovulation or anything like that right off the bat. Plus my ovulation has always been all over the place, not regular at all. So, we pulled the goalie in December and by April we were pregnant! For those of you who don’t realize, that’s only 5 ovulations, so 5 chances to actually get pregnant. I came to find out that in order to get pregnant it takes all the planets aligning, all the wishes in the world to come true AND a miracle to conceive, but I didn’t realize this at the time of my first pregnancy because like I said, we weren’t trying, we simply stopped not trying to get pregnant and it actually worked! Hallelujah!!!
Let me tell you how I found out I was pregnant for the first time…
I had just discovered the show Tucci in Italy (HIGHLY recommend by the way..) and saw the episode on the fried artichoke hearts and wanted to try it myself! Hubby and I love artichokes, so I thought this would be a real treat! I’ve never deep fried anything, but I’m not stupid… or so I thought… well the recipe called for super hot oil, and my dumb ass thought that putting a lid on the oil would help it heat up faster just like it does when you boil water. That was mistake #1. THEN I had the brilliant idea of taking the artichokes outside on our back porch to clean and trim down to expose the hearts. It was such a pretty afternoon, sun was out, it smelled so fresh, warm, just perfect. That was mistake #2. THENNNNN I doubled down by putting these two brilliant ideas together by putting the pot of oil on the stove, covered, on high, and going outside to trim the artichokes down while the oil came up to temp. This was the catastrophic mistake #3. Again, my dumb ass I guess forgot that oil will combust on its own if heated to an extreme degree, and I was treating it like a pot of boiling water… so SO stupid. Welp, I’m sitting there outside with my husband (who didn’t know I had the pot of oil on the stove) trimming down the artichokes when I started smelling strong garlic… (to make the fried artichokes extra yummy I decided to use an entire bottle of special garlic olive oil to fry them in…) I smelled the garlic and my eyes got wide. It was like in the movies when the camera closes in and the main character realizes all of their life failures at once… THAT IS WHAT I DID.
I jumped up and opened the sliding glass door into the kitchen and saw a wall of flames coming off of the stove. I yelled fire to my husband and ran inside to look for my phone to dial 911. While I was looking for my phone, my husband had gotten all of our fire extinguishers and started trying to put out the wall of oven flames. He succeeded to put the fire out twice, but everything was so hot that it only lasted a few seconds and it burst into flames again… so not my finest hour (I’m literally cringing just writing this). Meanwhile our house is filling up with smoke and I still can’t find my damn phone. My mom lives 3 houses down, so I gave up looking after 30 seconds that felt like forever and sprinted to her house. I banged on the door, she answered immediately and all I said was fire at my house call 911!! I turned to run back to the house, stopped, whipped back around and yelled, “GREASE, it’s a grease fire”, then ran home. By then neighbors of our cul-de-sac were out in our front yard when I came running back and one goes, is there anyone left inside? And I said my husband and ran into the wall of black smoke inside to look for him. I screamed his name all throughout the house and then ran out into the back yard to find him there with our two dogs. So, everyone got out safe. The fire department arrived in 5 minutes flat and was able to put out the fire. To add insult to injury my mom is a volunteer for the fire department, she isn’t a fire fighter, but she’s on their Air Support Team, who support the fire fighters when they are called out to fires, so we know the entire department because of her. It was super embarrassing, but also very comforting to have friends there saving my house. One of the fire fighters who I have literally known all my life walks up to me and goes haha I think you might want this, and hands me my cell phone. Then he laughs and goes, sorry for getting it wet, it was right next to the stove, so we accidentally got it with the hose.
Once everything calmed down and we were checked out by the paramedics I broke down in tears. I ruined our home over the dumbest mistake I’ve ever made. Just completely careless, brain dead, POS, loser, you’re smarter than this, you know better… (this self punishment went on for a long time, it will always be a cringe worthy memory for me)…
Anyways, this story is about Poppy not my ridiculously stupid house fire. Well because we had been trying to get pregnant I hadn’t been drinking to “keep my system clean”. Well my hubby grabbed our super nice bottle of whisky that we got from an auction at H&H (please look up Heroes and Horses, it’s a wonderful organization). Which was half charred from the fire to all take 1 shot to calm the F down. I gave him “the look” so he found a private moment to ask what was up. I said, “Listen, I don’t think I am, but will you run home to grab a pregnancy test for me? I feel like I should take one before I take a shot.” He said no problem and ran home to grab one. I took it and it was negative, so I was in the clear.
The next day I was feeling much worse, super sad, mad at myself, unsure of what we were going to do… that I wanted to actually drink not just have one shot. It was weird something told me to take another test even though I had just taken a test the day before and it was negative. So, I went back to our charred, ashy, broken home and grabbed another pregnancy test out of the bathroom cabinet. I took it in my sister’s home bathroom (she lives 5 houses down from me) and it was POSITIVE. We were actively “trying” and upon seeing the positive result I literally said “oh s***” out loud in the bathroom. Which surprised me, because getting pregnant is something we really wanted, but c’mon the circumstances now were not ideal! But right after the “oh s***” moment I got really, really, realllllllllly exited! Talk about going from an ultimate low to an ultimate high! I couldn’t wait to tell my hubby I was pregnant!
I told my husband and we decided to tell the family because we all needed a win. So, I found out I was pregnant for the first time the day after our house fire and I was on cloud 9! Everything was going to be ok, I’d make sure it was ok! There was going to be a baby! I named it Poppy because I downloaded one of those pregnancy apps and it said that for how far along I was that the baby was the size of a poppy seed. This pure joy lasted exactly one week. I started to bleed. I panicked and called around to see where I could get a pregnancy test at a doctors office. I couldn’t even get into Planned Parenthood. I finally found a lab that would check the amount of HCG in your blood. I went and had my blood drawn for this test. I also purchased more pregnancy tests because the HCG test would take a few days to get the results. All the subsequent tests I took came out negative. I was devastated.
I felt so stupid for telling everyone I was pregnant. I felt like losing the pregnancy was my fault. I hated my body because it couldn’t do the one thing it was literally made for. How did I lose this baby?! Could it have been the terrifying stress of the house fire?! Then my thoughts got super dark… so I got my period, that meant I shed everything… including my precious baby. Really?! I have to flush my precious baby down the toilet?! THEN I desperately thought, maybe I can see it, like get some closure?! But no, it was too tiny – a little blood clot that was too small to even notice… the size of a poppy seed… Again, I was WRECKED! I stayed in bed for 5 days straight. Then, my mom, bless her soul, thought that the new movie, Lial Lial Crocodile, would cheer me up, cause how could it not?! It’s an adorable movie about a singing croc, C’mon?! I laid my head in her lap and cried through the whole movie. Then, I felt bad for ruining the movie for everyone!
THEN I started downplaying my own grief!! I was like ok, so you were pregnant and thought u were going to be a mom… big deal… what? That lasted a whole week…?! Oh, some big loss! That’s nothing compared to these poor women who have still births or are much farther along than you were… which is a nightmare that no one should go through, but a loss is a loss. I still thought I was going to be a mom… There was going to be a baby and I was going to me it’s mama, then nothing. And I didn’t get to hold my baby, I had to flush it down the toilet. So f’ed up.
Exactly 2 weeks later I got a notice that a certified letter arrived at the post office for me. Which I thought was super weird because I didn’t have a PO Box… my sister gave me a ride down to the post office and I went in to get the letter. I was really nervous, who would be sending me a certified letter? Why? Am I being sued?? Doesn’t someone walk up to you and hand you the letter and say, “You’ve been served”, when you’re getting sued??? That’s what happens on TV…? Well the post office found my letter and gave it to me. I ran to the car and opened it. It was from the lab where I had my blood drawn to check my hCG levels. It confirmed that I in fact, had been pregnant. I just started bawling. Thank God my sister drove me, I definitely didn’t want to be alone in that moment.
Miscarriage is extremely common. Something like 1 in 4 pregnancies are miscarriages and that’s just the norm! I don’t mean to discourage anyone with that fact, I only want people to be aware of how common it actually is. I had no idea and I for sure never thought it could happen to me! It hit me harder than anything I had ever experienced before. But, once I got the courage to talk about it I found out many of my friends had had them as well. I had a girlfriend who had 5 miscarriages before she had her beautiful healthy little girl and she just had a beautiful healthy boy! It is just an unfortunate truth that every woman needs to talk about. We need to stop blaming ourselves and be there for one another and the only way to do that is to talk about it! I pray you never go through anything close to this. But if you do, it will be ok. Just work on having the courage to talk about it. It isn’t your fault!
Now once I felt comfortable enough to start trying again after our miscarriage I would still cringe and get pissed at diaper commercials or the baby isle in the store, etc. It was so incredibly gut wrenching how negative test after negative test was! It felt like everyone was having babies and I wasn’t. So, so unfair! I even got jealous of this adorable little preggo mama who was waddling into the store with her hubby and 3 other kids bopping around… I literally thought, B u already have 3, why do you get another one and I have none?! Yep – I hit rock bottom…
But then again, at least I knew I could get pregnant, but why wasn’t it happening again?! This jealousy and sadness lasted a long, long time. I swear it lasted just up until I got pregnant again. Once I let go of or got over the jealousy, I finally got pregnant… coincidence, maybe, but I know harboring those feelings wasn’t helping anyone… the sadness however still comes and goes. But, like any loss it’s something that will always be there.
I just recently learned that a rainbow baby is a baby you have after a miscarriage because after the storm there is a rainbow. Which I think is beautiful. I was blessed with a set of twins my second pregnancy. I was so lucky I got a double rainbow! Now, if I would have carried Poppy to full term I wouldn’t have had the babies that I have now. I couldn’t imagine my life without these two – and I believe I will meet my angel baby, Poppy, someday… and they will meet their Dad, brother, and sister! And get this – my twin’s birth flower is THE POPPY! Can you believe it?! How special is that?! That’s definitely what I would call A God Thing!
Mama Bear had an amazing idea. She is going to give her angel baby a Viking send off on what would have been their birthday. She is shutting off her phone and running to the mountains and river where she laid flowers to rest for her Grandma. She said this idea helped her feel so much better because it will be a form of closure… a better end than a flush. She invited me to go with her! I was so completely touched and honored that she would share this intimate experience with me. We are going to pack a lunch, grab some wine and ugly cry as we honor our angel babies. And get this… her angel baby’s due date is 1 day before the twins first birthday. You can’t make this up! That’s ANOTHER God Thing right there!
(P.S. Mama Bear made a picture like this of her family when she invited me to do the Viking send offs. Then, she made this picture for me that represents my family… it made me cry, I just think it’s so beautiful! Thanks again Mama Bear!)
No matter where you are in your journey there’s no wrong way to make a family. You will discover exactly what you were meant to have. Keep the faith and trust in yourself and you can’t go wrong!
My double rainbow❤️❤️
Finally having the courage to write down my story comes full circle… Mama Bear just told me that she is creating a memoir-style book filled with real stories from women who have gone through infertility or pregnancy loss. She is currently in the compiling stage. If you would like to share your story for this project, please email her at healingwithmamabear67@gmail.com and she will email you the submission guidelines. “We don’t share to compare, we share to show you are not alone and you are more than a statistic.”
